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Monday, July 27, 2015

LTW: Motivating the #Elementary #Gifted Student

Motivating the Elementary Gifted Student

The gifted population in America often struggles
academically, socially, and mentally while in the public school system. These
struggles are often seen in gifted students as early as the second grade. One
of the reasons gifted students struggle is motivation. Shunk, Meece and
Pintrick (2014) define motivation as “the process whereby goal directed
activities are instigated and sustained” (pg.5). Long (2013, September) found
gifted students need to be intellectually stimulated or they will become bored
in class (pg. 1). Most educators struggle to keep their gifted students engaged
within their classroom.Theroux (2014)
found not all motivational theories will work well with every gifted student
(pg. 1). Educators need to implement different motivational strategies frequently
(Theroux, 2014, pg.1).

Classical
Conditioning

Classical conditioning is the
process in which a stimulus is presented to the student in order to elicit a
response (Shunk, Meece, and Pintrick, 2014, pg. 22). A response will not occur
if the learner does not see a link between their response and the stimulus that
was given.Gifted students will not
respond if they have “checked out” of the learning environment.A gifted student will “check out” of a
learning environment when their minds are somewhere else (Long, 2013,
September). This usually occurs when the student is unmotivated.Unmotivated gifted students will operate within
classical conditioning whenever they are seeking attention. Theroux (2014)
found gifted students who are bored would frequently seek attention through
positive, negative or passive attention seeking behaviors depending upon their
preferred attention seeking style (pg. 1. See figure 1).

Figure 1

Operant
Conditioning

Operant Conditioning is a motivational behavior theory
that is like classical conditioning. In both Operant and Classical Conditioning
a stimulus is introduced and a response is gleaned from the reaction of the
student. Schunk, Meece and Pintrich (2014) found motivated behavior can be
increased or decreased depending upon the consequences of the student’s
reaction (pg. 25). Unlike Classical Conditioning, Operant Conditioning
stipulates that a student’s reaction to a stimulus can be changed through
reinforcements or punishments (Shunk, Meece and Pintrich, 2014, pg. 24).
Reinforcement is given to increase the likelihood that the behavior exhibit
will appear more frequently (Shunk, Meece and Pintrich, 2014, pg. 24).
Punishments are used to decrease the likelihood of the behavior’s occurrence.

Educators who work
with the gifted population can use Operant Conditioning to encourage proper
behavioral management. A student who turns in all their homework on time may
receive a sticker or stamp on their paper would be an example of positive
reinforcement.Theroux (2014) cautions
educators to sparingly use rewards and punishments as a behavior modifier when
working with the gifted population (pg. 1). The goal of the educator should be
to develop intrinsic motivation within their gifted students. Theroux (2014)
argued rewards are only effective in gifted students when they are unmotivated or
engaged in an activity that is lower than their abilities (pg. 1).Rewards should never be increased for
increased expectations (Theroux, 2014, pg. 1).Negative reinforcements occur when a reward is removed. A reward is
removed once the desired behavior is effective (Theroux, 2014, pg. 1).

Bad behavior may
be countered by punishment by removing either a positive or negative reinforcer
(Schunk, Meece and Pintrich, 2014, pg. 24). For example, a student talks
excessively in class. The teacher decides to reward all her students with a
sticker except for the student who has been talking. This would be a punishment
because the educator has removed a positive reinforcement from that student.
See figure 1 for more examples.